Depression: Sorting The Physical From The Spiritual Series

For free audio or video download of this message, visit https://www.treasuringgod.com/sermons-by-scripture or my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DarrellFerguson.

Depression is by far the most common complaint of people who seek counseling. Between 1988 and 1993 office visits for depression doubled—and not only visits to psychiatrists but also to primary care physicians.

Countless books have been written on the topic, and in many cases the Christian counselors’ theories are worse than the world’s. For example, the following is from the Stephen Ministries training manual:

Anger kept inside and unleashed against oneself causes depression. Loss of psychic energy causes the person to approach a zero balance; finally depression appears when there is no longer sufficient psychic energy to perform.… Don’t use the Bible or prayer without first listening to the helpee … the helpee is not ready to accept passages [of Scripture].

A zero balance of psychic energy? There is a reason the term “psychobabble” has caught on as a common way to describe language such as this. It is meaningless at best and very often in direct opposition to the teaching of Scripture.

Understanding Depression Is there a Chemical Cause?

More and more people today are adopting the opinion that depression must have a physical cause. There are two major reasons for this:

People many times are depressed for no apparent reason. Nothing terribly bad happened. They don’t want to be depressed, but they are.

When people take antidepressants, they often feel better. And some would reason that if a drug can alleviate the problem, it must be a physical problem.

Both of these ideas have major flaws.

First, while there may be no apparent emotional reason, that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t one. Not all emotional factors are immediately apparent.

Second, the fact that drugs seem to help does not address the spiritual aspects of the situation. If I commit murder and feel terribly guilty, that guilt is tied to a spiritual issue. If I experiment with drugs that make me feel less guilty, does this mean the guilt was not a spiritual issue? Obviously the answer is no; it simply means I have deadened my senses.

In order for an illness to be considered organic, there must be some demonstrable problem with the physical body; i.e., tissue that is damaged or not working properly. But with depression, that is not the case. As far as medical science can tell, the body of a depressed person is working fine. Depression is diagnosed not from observation of the body but from reports of the individual about how he is feeling.

The chemical imbalance theory

Most people believe depression has been proved to be the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. Schools of psychiatry and drug companies (who have a tremendous financial stake in the matter) have advanced this theory as though it were scientifically verified. It is not.

The truth is, the technology does not exist to measure brain chemicals before and after people become depressed, then again after they have taken medication. This is why the inserts in antidepressant medications consistently use terms such as “presumed,” “believed,” or even “unknown” in describing what a drug actually does. In an article approved for continuing education by the American Psychiatric Association, the author states, “We don’t know how psychotropic medications really work” (Khan, 1999).

Peter Breggin, M.D., was formerly a teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School and a fulltime consultant with the National Institute of Mental Health. Author of

Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry

(1997), he states that “there are no known biochemical imbalances in the brain of typical psychiatric patients” (p. 5b). Dr. William Wirshing, a researcher and professor of psychiatry at UCLA, in 1999 told a room full of psychiatrists, “We have been lying to everyone for years concerning the chemical imbalance model.” No one in the audience challenged him.3

Some physical problems, such as an underactive thyroid, can contribute to depression, but in a case like that, when a physical factor is found, it is not called depression; it is called hypothyroidism.

Does the Bible address clinical depression?

The Integrationists would have us believe that the Bible is sufficient for counseling people who are a little down, but full blown clinical depression requires drugs and professional help. They say Scripture does not address the issue of clinical depression; it is therefore, best left in the hands of the experts.

But in Lamentations 3 we see that Jeremiah, or whoever wrote Lamentations, had many signs of clinical depression. He experienced all of the following:

Utter despair: “He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead” (v. 6).

Lethargy, fatigue, lack of energy: “he has weighed me down with chains” (v. 7).

Hopelessness: “He has walled me in so I cannot escape” (v. 7).

Isolation: “Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer”